Philly woman pleads guilty in contract murder

December 19, 2002|The Morning Call

A woman who has told authorities she entered into a contract with her boyfriend to kill the men her boyfriend thought she had slept with pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court Wednesday to third-degree murder and conspiracy, a prosecutor said.

Vernell Jones, 33, of Philadelphia admitted in court to killing John Davis. He was found shot to death in a van on Dec. 18, 2001, outside the Whitemarsh Township bridal shop where he worked.

Authorities believe her boyfriend, Kenneth Harold Burno, fired the first shot into Davis' head. Jones has said she fired two more shots to make sure Davis was dead, authorities say.

Burno, 32, of Philadelphia, was arrested earlier this week and charged with first-degree murder in the Davis case.

Jones pleaded guilty before Judge Kent Albright and was not sentenced. She had been in prison for shooting another man from her contract with Burno. That man -- a Philadelphia firefighter who was shot in Fairmount Park in October 2001 -- survived.

In the Whitemarsh slaying, the district attorney's office "has agreed not to go forward with a first-degree murder charge if she testifies truthfully at Ken Burno's trial," Montgomery County prosecutor Sean Cullen said.

In a written contract that displayed the first initials of their five intended victims, Jones and Burno agreed to kill four men that Burno thought Jones had slept with and one man who believed Jones had cheated on Burno, prosecutors say.

Jones probably only had sex with two of the men, authorities have said, but she went along with Burno's idea to kill all five to preserve her relationship with Burno.

The two men who were shot were the only ones who, authorities believe, had sex with Jones.